1. Field of the Invention
The current invention concerns fire-resistant structures, fire-resistant insulations and a method for fire-proofing and fire-protection of permanent or temporary structures or objects. The fire-resistant structures comprise essentially of the fire-resistant insulation having a thermo-insulating capacities and thermo-insulating gradient wherein on the exterior side of the insulation, the insulation withstands temperatures of at least 1200° C. and up to 2000° C. and wherein on the interior side, closest to the structures and objects to be fire-protected, the insulation provides a protective shield for the fire-protected structure or object assuring that the temperature at the fire-protected structure reaches optimally only the temperature of about 120° C. and does not exceed 300° C.
The fire-resistant insulation is a composite covering comprising several layers of materials having different fire-resistant and insulating properties, said layers placed over and/or attached to each other thereby cumulatively providing fire-resistant insulation for protection against fires reaching temperatures up to 2000° C. for extended period of time. The fire-resistant structures are either made or built of such insulation, comprise such insulation or are covered with such insulation.
The fire-resistant composite covering can be a sheath or two sheaths connected together, or two circumferentially connected sheaths to form an inflatable cavity, a blanket or two blankets connected together or two connected blankets to form an inflatable cavity or a blanket and a sheath connected together to form an inflatable cavity. The fire-resistant composite covering may also be a tent or a tent-like structure made of a fire-resistant insulation permanently attached to or temporarily placed on or erected over the structure to be fire-protected.
Fire-resistant insulations of the invention are suitable for fire-protection or fire-proofing of various structures and objects such as houses, buildings, industrial plants, gardens, lawns, individual trees or forests or other permanent or temporary structures and provide protection against fires or firestorms or may be simply used as a fire barrier on the outskirt of the brush-fire to prevent fire spread.
2. Background and Related Disclosures
Fires, particularly fierce brush fires, bush fires and wildfires that affect large acreages and results in destruction of households, businesses, buildings, industrial plants or other structures, as well as forests, pastures or parks are all too common. They result in great personal tragedies, natural disasters as well as in immense economic losses. These fires may be caused by or connected with lightning, storms, firestorms, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, natural causes, human negligence or arson. Many of these fires spread quickly and become uncontrollable.
Temperatures of these fires can, at certain points, reach 1400° C. and may easily reach temperatures over 1600° C. Moreover, such fires may be caused or accompanied by winds, or wind gusts reaching up to 150 miles/hour. Whatever their origin, these fires are extremely dangerous and very hard to bring under control. Additionally, some of the fires, for example, bush or forest fires may advance at a rate of from 0.5 km/hour to more than 6 km/hour. The speed and intensity of these fires depends on the type of terrain and on weather conditions. The flames of these fires may reach the height up to 50 meters. These kinds of fires often exceed temperatures above 1600° C. and, under extreme conditions, can give off 10,000 kilowatts per meter of fire front (Canadian Forest Service Report at www.nofc.forestry.ca/fire). Additionally, many of the fires end up becoming firestorms.
Firestorms are conflagrations which attain such intensity that they create and sustain their own wind system. This phenomenon is particularly often observed in bush fires, brush fires, forest fires and wildfires. The firestorms are created as a result of the stack effect occurring when the heat of the original fire draws in more and more of surrounding air, thereby creating turbulence and erratic changes in wind direction. The wind shear generated during firestorms is capable of producing small tornado-like fire whirls that may result in a quick spread of fire not only to adjacent but also to more remote areas. Moreover, the draft generated during firestorms may draw in large quantities of oxygen thereby significantly increasing heat and combustion.
Clearly, the uncontrollable fires and firestorms create very dangerous and economically unsustainable conditions and problems and there is a continuing need to provide solutions to these problems.
Although throughout the years attempts were made to provide solutions to these problems, so far there is no reliable, practical and economical way to protect houses, businesses and other structures and objects from these uncontrollable fires and firestorms.
It would therefore be advantageous to provide means for protecting housing, buildings, trees, forests, gardens, bushes and other structures and objects from fires and firestorms having extremely high temperatures and also those that are accompanied by winds or other extreme conditions that further prevent these fires to be controlled and extinguished.
One attempt to provide protection for housing structures against the fire disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,168,347, issued on Sep. 18, 1979, describes highly heat and flame resistant articles of manufacture comprising a swellable fire retardant composition containing a reaction product of phosphoric acid and a reducing sugar in association with a fire unstable material. Disadvantage of this approach is that the intumescent composition, when exposed to heat, softens and produces voluminous foam eventually resulting in a black carbonaceous char, definitely not a desirous result for home or business owners.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,503,596 issued on Jan. 7, 2003, discloses a composite firewall structure fabricated of a sheet of carbon-carbon material formed with first and second sides where the first side of the sheet is able to prevent the flame to penetrate the composite from the first side to the second side for 15 minutes. A problem with this composite is that the composite firewall provides only approximately 15 minutes protection for a fire of up to only about 1093° C. (2000° F.) temperature whereas the brush fires often reach temperatures of about 1600° C. and last for several hours or even days.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,767,656, issued on Aug. 30, 1988, discloses a load-bearing composite material structure having a plurality of layers of composite materials. Each layer includes a matrix material that withstands temperature of about 649° C. (1200° F.) for about five minutes. Outer surface directly exposed to a fire includes a barrier resistant to temperature of about 1093° C. (2000° F.) for at least fifteen minutes. All these layers are bonded together to form a single load bearing and substantially fire-resistant structure. However, as in other disclosures, this composite is able to protect the structure from fire for only about 15 minutes and only from temperatures of about 1193° C. (2000° F.). Such composite would not be suitable for protection of housing or building during fires and firestorms that have temperatures up to and above 1600° C. and often last several hours or days, that is, much longer than 15 minutes.
In another attempt to provide a fire protection, the U.S. Pat. No. 5,740,643 issued on Apr. 21, 1998, discloses a fire-proof and hurricane resistant building that comprises a concrete floor, and a plurality of special wall and roof assemblies. The walls further comprise a reinforced cinder block walls, foams, stucco, fire-proof coating, steel studs and fire retardant gypsum plaster. The roof comprises steel trusses, steel joints, metal sheaths and fire-proof tiles. Such complex fire-proofing makes this fire-proof building very costly and impractical for protection of an ordinary housing because of its weight, complexity and, ultimately, also a cost.
Thus it would be advantageous to provide fire-resistant insulation that would be practical, lightweight, durable, storageable and affordable and could be easily attachable to various structures to make these structures fire-resistant wherein such insulation would provide a fire protection for said fire-resistant structures for extended time of several hours or days against high temperatures fires, particularly the fires that last several days and that reach high temperatures well over those disclosed in the prior art.
It is, therefore, a primary object of this invention to provide fire-resistant insulations, fire-resistant structures and fire-resistant coverings and means for attaching said fire-resistant insulations and coverings to said structures as well as a method for protecting structures and objects against high temperature fires reaching temperatures over 1200° C. and up to 2000° C. for extended periods of time longer than 15 minutes.
All patents and patent application cited herein are herein incorporated by reference in their entirety.